I picked up BG2 and the TOB expansion based on a some positive nostalgic comments here a couple of months back. Now I’m close to wrapping it up, and have really enjoyed the game so far, both for the story and combat tactics. Now I’m looking to my next RPG fix.
So, how good is NWN? Has the game aged well? Are the bugs fixed? Is there a large amount of worthwhile fan content?
Also, is the single-character aspects of NWN built into the interface and engine, or is it just a characteristic of the boxed campaign?
Lots of great single player content before Witch’s Wake, and even more since.
Most of the bug are worked out of the official versions, but with each dowloaded component, there is always the possibility that a few fan-made things won’t work together.
Is it worth it? It’s the only game my wife has played since she bought it. Almost exclusively MP at this point. She was disappointed in the official campaign, but has loved some of the fan made stuff. She is DMing her own mod now and is creeping up the Neverwinter Connections rankings.
The official campaign in NWN wasn’t all that impressive IMO, but the mod community is enormous. Check nwvault.ign.com… hundreds of modules with player ratings, reviews, etc.
NWN is designed to be played with your character as the focus. You can have henchmen in the OC and some modules, and you can form parties to facilitate MP gaming, but you will always be playing one character per person.
I haven’t been able to get into NWN. The campaign game didn’t grab me, and the user content wasn’t far along when I tried it. Eventually I’ll give it another try. But, I was jonesing for some rpg, and I’ve gotten my fix from Morrowind. I was nervous that it was going to be a stale version of DAOC, but on the contrary I’ve really taken to the world and its denizens. One feature that you might find refreshing after BG2 is the first person perspective. I was attacked by a cliff racer (a vulture bird thing) last night and I just about jumped out of my chair, as I hadn’t seen it flying above me. You won’t get that feeling in NWN. Plus the mod community seems very strong in Morrowind.
I’m obviously biased, but I do think NWN is a great game. Shadows of Undrentide (the first expansion) is coming out fairly soon, and it offers a fairly different type of gameplay–more geared towards role-players. It’s still not a crazy RPG with no combat… there are just more ways to solve a lot of encounters.
Oh… and there are over 2300 user-created modules available… Watch for the City of Doors initiative, as well as Dragonlance Adventures, which are two huge community projects that should be approaching the release of the first modules soon.
I’m willing to bet that before you reach the end of Morrowind, you’ll be glad BG2 didn’t have cliff racers. Man, did they get old after you had killed a hundred or so…
I didn’t like the NWN single player campaign. I loaned the game away so I haven’t had a chance to try out any of the mods. There’s probably enough good material out there now to justify the purchase.
And I tend to agree with Tom here. And obviously, I’m a bit biased as well. People tend to be pretty divided about the official campaign, but the potential of the game is enormous.
And it’s been proven in many of the community modules (dreamcatcher, for instance) as well as BW’s Witch’s Wake. Also, SOU looks pretty promising.
The official campaign was okay, but not great. I honestly wish that they had put less effort into that and shipped the game with a collection of short standalone modules instead (maybe a few originals and a remake of a classic or two, like Keep on the Borderlands). Then they could have spent more time focusing on the important part of the game: multiplayer and toolset stuff. The community has created a lot of cool stuff for the game (script wizards, custom character creators, extra placeables and tilesets, etc.), but I think BioWare might have had time to do some of it themselves if they had dumped the big solo campaign.
The official campaign was weak in some areas, but the curse castle in the woods was brilliant and Aarin Gend was hot. I had fun with some of the player modules though.
